Hari, You might have received bunch of suggestions from the group. Here's my 2 cents.

You can use the below code as it is with a modification for the directory location. 1) options suppress DOS window. 2) sysfunc checks if the directory already exists, otherwise it makes one. 3) i used sysexec instead of X. The resaon being sysexec can be used conditionally (within an if..then..), whereas X cannot be conditionally executed.

Good luck. Santosh

options noxwait noxsync; data _null_; * Make sure if the directory exists; %let rc = %sysfunc(fileexist(&newdir)); %if &rc=0 %then %do; * Make the directory; %sysexec md &newdir; %end; run; %mend makedir;

%makedir(full directory location);

-----Original Message----- From: SAS(r) Discussion [mailto:SAS-L@listserv.uga.edu]On Behalf Of Hari Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2005 3:09 AM To: SAS-L@listserv.uga.edu Subject: MkDir Command in SAS

Hi,

One of the regular SAS'er of this group offered me a solution (personal mail) to a problem I posted in this group and along the way mentioned one additonal feature of SAS which is using X command to create folders.

Like the below code creates a folder by the name "ABCProj" in my temporary directory.

X 'mkdir %temp%\ABCproj';

(I thought this would be very useful because subsequently I can create a temp library which can point to above location and keep all the temp files grouped within a single temp folder. Later depending on my whims I can use it or delete it.)

I have 2 questions regarding mkdir command and one related to SAS coding

a) After running this code I get 2 windows one saying "The SAS X command is active. Enter Exit at the prompt....." and another window is the DOS prompt which is the active window. I can type exit at the dos prompt and both the window disappears. Is there any option by which I can suppress both the windows. Its because I just want to create the folder and dont want to do anything else with the dos prompt or the message. My request might make sense becuse I might subsequently write lots of code following folder creation and would like to get the resources for running those or it might be possible that am running it unattended (just pressing F8 and moved over to another workstation for doing something else). If there is such an option for suppressing the above 2 windows I would like them to apply for this case only. Its because I was trying out some code in SAS examples and came across Sleep function and in that case also similar message is displayed. Though am not using any sleep function in my case I wouldnt like to suppress all messages which SAS generates.

b) If I run the mkdir command more than once then the next time around I dont get any messages saying "such and such folder already exists and do you want to replace the contents etc". I believ esuch a message comes if in Windows we already have a folder "A" in path "P" and if I put/paste another folder with name "A" in path "P". Is such a behaviour of not displaying warning messge by SAS normal?

d) This is more to do with efficient SAS programming. Lets say I use the above make directory command in a particular code and have lots of other mundane code as well. Further I might be running this code lets say on a daily basis. Since make dir is a one time usage so it doesnt make sense to include that line on a daily basis (for that particular computer). I might be having similar codes which is of one time running usage only (though of a different nature than mkdir) for that particular computer. So, do folks maintain 2 sets of code files one which needs to be run only once for that project and another which needs to be run everytime one wants to run a particulr analysis. (Note I wouldnt like to delete that one time codes as one should have a documentation somewhere as to what was done if one is reviewing the same 6 motnhs from now). But again if I have to give the code to my colleague then I will have to mail 2 sets of code and explain it to him/her as to why 2 code files are there etc. I understand that one way might be to have a single code file and selectively run only those parts of code which are needed but it is not very robust. Otherwise with a single code file one may also comment out those parts which dont need to be run on a daily basis for that comuter. But again if it needs to be run on a different computer then one needs to uncomment them etc which is again very.... Are there better solutions?

Regards, Hari India

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